


Hold on when you get love

by unfertig



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, college avocados
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 15:04:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4791797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfertig/pseuds/unfertig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy likes to take care of people. He also likes to be taken care of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold on when you get love

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Want You To Need Me, Need You To Want Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4698704) by [szm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/szm/pseuds/szm). 



> Notes: this is a companion piece/prequel to szm's story [Want You To Need Me, Need You To Want Me](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4698704), and follows the structure of her fic pretty closely, though you can read it as a standalone too. 
> 
> So much gratitude to the great nonaraptor for beta-reading and handholding!
> 
> Title comes from the Stars song [Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SYO6a6PaTs)

Foggy can't fucking sleep.

He's so tired he can feel his heart pounding in his ears, but he just can't sleep. Every time he closes his eyes he can hear the whispering of his fellow students, someone shouting instructions in his ears, his mom's static-y voice on the phone when she tells him to eat more vegetables, his sister crying over her high school boyfriend, Matt's puff of laughter against his neck, with his hand on Foggy's arm. The crackling of a milk frother at work, plates clinking when someone unloads the dishwasher at his favorite café where he spend the last evening hunched over textbooks, studying for hours, downing latte after yummy delicious expensive caramel latte.

A loud echo of weeks without a break in his head, on a demented merry-go-round and it won't stop, and he's just way too tired and why can't he make his brain shut up, _why_.

He rubs his eyes and can feel tears burning in them. This is stupid. Why is this happening to him? It's a wonder he hasn't woken up Matt yet with his tossing and turning, and for a minute he contemplates pulling out his mp3 player and listening to some silly soothing music but that would probably wake Matt up – in fact, has woken up Matt before, why are his silly pretty ears so sensitive – so no. He sits up, wraps his blanket around himself, gathers up his phone and mp3 player and old battered Game Boy Advance and just tries to slip as silently as he can out of his bed and the room. Which is not very silent at all because the door makes this stupid creaking noise when he opens it, and he hears Matt turning, and there's a slight change in breathing. Foggy holds his breath. Nothing happens.

Okay then. He sneaks out of the door, down the dark empty corridors into the common room and sits down on the least terrible couch out of a lot of terrible couches, with pillows that are probably filled with wood shavings but at least have no stains.  
Tetris and his Studio Ghibli mix won't help with the over-stimulation thing he has going on, he's pretty sure of that, but oh well. The alternative would be knocking himself out with a hammer, and he's not quite there yet.

*

He wakes up with a start when someone shakes his shoulder.

"Foggy?"

"Huh?" His mouth tastes gross, and urgh, he totally drooled on himself, nice one Nelson, plus his neck hurts from sitting up all crooked all night. Matt is standing over him, not wearing glasses, hair sticking up in all directions and he looks soft and sleepy and beautiful and something lodges in Foggy's throat and he curses himself.

"How did you know that was me?" he asks.

"I, uh..." Matt's looking shiftier than usual.

He gasps. "Did you feel up my face, Murdock? Do you walk around feeling up random people's faces?"

"Foggy," Matt laughs quietly. "You and your blanket were gone, and there was a guy snoring in the common room. Trust me when I say I know what your snores sound like."

"Hmpf," Foggy says and crosses his arms. "You totally felt up my face.”

Matt is still standing over him, way too close. "No! I extrapolated."

"Whatever you say, pal."

"What were you doing here anyway? You have a perfectly good bed, you know that right?"

"Urgh Matt, the perfect part is really debatable," he says. He feels fuzzy. Outside he can see it's the moments before dawn, the sky a weird dark blue that shimmers. Matt leans down even closer and if he didn't know better he'd thought he was trying to get a better look at him.

"So?" Matt asks.

"I couldn't sleep," Foggy admits quietly. "And I didn't want to wake you."

Matt bites his lips, and then, oh god, and then he reaches out his hand and brushes Foggy's hair out of his face. Foggy feels heat rising up to his cheeks.

"That's... that's very considerate of you, but I don't actually mind you switching on the light and reading or whatever, you know that, right?" Matt is still brushing his hair from his forehead, tugging it behind his ears. What the fuck. It is so nice. So nice. Foggy can't help pushing into Matt's hand like a sleepy puppycat. Urgh.

"Yeah, but it seemed like a good idea at the time," he murmurs and closes his eyes again. He could go to sleep like this. He still feels tired. The constant chattering in his mind has calmed down a little but instead now he sees Tetris blocks falling behind his mind's eyes which is. Well. Unfun. Then he realizes it's morning and –

"Oh god what time is it anyway?"

"Five thirty."

Foggy's eyes snap open and he shakes his head, sadly dislodging Matt's hand. "Oh fuck no I promised to help Dan with his delivery this morning. Oh shit I'm late, he's going to be mad."

Matt frowns. "He's not going to be mad because he's not actually paying you for carrying his boxes."

"But I promised!" Foggy says, getting up, dropping his blanket and Game Boy in the process. Matt bends over to get them for him, feeling around on the floor a little. "Plus he pays me in cupcakes."

"You should be paid in money. Or at least healthy vegetables," Matt says, pulling the blanket back around Foggy's shoulders.

"He's my mom's uncle, okay. I can't let my family pay me."

"Nice healthy broccoli then, Foggy."

"Okay, but I still really need to go or he'll be mad, and then I need to go to work and oh shit I haven't printed out my essay for Professor Podolsky's class shit shit shit I need to go."

He grabs his blankets and Game Boy and Matt and drags them back to their room and then he gets changed and runs off to Dan's little grocery store and why did he promise this again. It's too early. He slept maybe two hours. He feels slightly sick and like something is buzzing under his skin.

This day is going to be great, he can feel it.

*

It doesn't really get better. Carrying boxes in the early cold morning without any caffeine in his bloodstream is not fun, though the cupcakes Dan's wife gives him are nice. Work sucked, because who loves working in a coffee shop during a morning rush?

Class sucks, and he almost falls asleep during it but Matt pokes him in the ribs gently once, and Foggy squeaks and people look at them and well.

When he goes off to print out his essay in the library he hears someone crying softly, and it's Janice from room 367, who he has spoken to maybe once or twice in the kitchen. He sits down next to her and asks what's wrong and then he gets an armful of depressed girl losing it over school and girlfriends and confined space and Foggy empathizes, he truly does.

He brings her one of Dan's cupcake, and then his phone rings and it's his grandma inviting him ("And Matthew! Don't forget to bring him Franklin, he needs food! Does that boy eat enough? Do you eat enough?") to family dinner on Sunday.

*

That evening he sits on his bed with his laptop on his knees going through his emails when his phone rings. "Can you take over my morning shift? Please Foggy please please please I have this test tomorrow and I--" he can hear Mona on the other end of the phone hyperventilating and yes sure he has no idea when the last time he had a day off was but sure.

"Are you alright?" he asks Mona, and Mona dissolves into sobs and hangs up. He makes a mental reminder to bring her a cupcake.

"I think you need to take a break,” Matt says from where he's hunched over his papers on his desk.

"Look who's talking! Who was the guy again I had to drag out of the library at closing time multiple days in a row because 'nooo Foggy I need to study I'm going to fail this test I got a perfect A+ on nooo Foggy sleep is overrated nooo!'"

"That's not the same," Matt says stubbornly.

"Shut up and let me study in peace,” Foggy says, slightly more snappish then he intended, but Matt doesn't seem to mind. Instead he rummages in his bag and -

"Sure, but only if you eat a sandwich."

Matt the mother hen does indeed hold out a sandwich and Foggy has to get up and take it, because he really is a bit hungry, and Matt bought him food which is nice, but Matt pulls it away at the last time.

"Hey!" Foggy says, indignant.

"You only get your sandwich if you promise to go to bed early."

"Yes _mom_ ,” Foggy says.

Matt gives him the sandwich, grins and says "Good boy."

That is.

That is really.

Jesus Christ.

Foggy needs a brain-reset badly. Preferably with a memory wipe. He snatches the sandwich, sits back down on his bed, his knees drawn to his chest, munching on his food while his face is glowing like a traffic light and it's kind of an asshole thought to be grateful for Matt not being able to see him. But well. That's his life now apparently.

*

Falling asleep should not be this hard. He has no idea how much sleep he has gotten lately but it might have been a wee bit too little. But as soon as he closes his eyes his mental cinema screen with full on Dolby surround provides this Oscar worthy moving picture: Janice crying, heavy gray boxes from Dan's delivery, Matt's voice softly saying "hey buddy," the phone ringing, his work schedule – all red excel boxes, too many of them, Matt brushing his hair out of his face, _good boy_ , Latin vocabulary, mom's voice, the smell of milk, grandma telling him to eat ---

Foggy buries his face in the pillow and groans.

Matt turns. "Foggy?" he mumbles, voice heavy with sleep.

Foggy stays silent. He's not going to wake up Matt because he is having a meltdown over … over what even? No finales, no pressing existential crisis, no breakups, just work and school and people crying on him, that's just normal life, right. He's not having a meltdown over life. He refuses. And he won't drag Matt into his not-meltdown.

Come to think of it, the couch in the common room wasn't that bad.

*

He's getting great at Tetris.

*

"Foggy?"

 _Oh god_ not again. He should have set an alarm. This time Matt is sitting next to him, hand on his arm, eyebrows drawn together in an intense frown. No glasses again.

"Yeah, it's me," Foggy says even though obviously Matt knows. He dozed off on his Game Boy and can feel the square imprints on his face. Sexy. He rubs his eyes.

"If I catch you here tomorrow again I'll swear I'll tie you to your bed," Matt says.

"Did not know you were that kinky, Mister Grey," Foggy says with a tired grin.

Matt's frown intensifies. "You'll pass out if you keep this up."

"I'm fine, I promise," Foggy says.

Matt bites his lip and doesn't say anything.

"I promise."

"Okay," Matt says quietly. "Just let me know if I can help, yeah?"

"I will, buddy," Foggy says, squeezing Matt's hand on his arm, and for a second Matt grips him tighter, and then he lets up.

"Let's get some coffee into you before you go to work," Matt says, pulling Foggy to his feet.

"And donuts!"

"No Foggy, no donuts for breakfast."

"Yes donuts," Foggy says, excited, and Matt sighs.

*

Obviously eating a shit-ton of sugar is not all that great when you're so exhausted you could fall over because after feeling like he could bounce off the walls for a bit it just makes him crash harder. What a surprise! Or not.

"Urghhhhh" Foggy says, burying his face into his folded arms. They sit in class, and it's actually _not_ boring, he should be taking notes and engage with the teacher and ask smart questions but everything his brain is supplying is a string of "uuuuuurghs". He can feel Matt's hand on his shoulder.

"You said you were okay," Matt whispers.

"I might have lied a little."

"Foggy."

"I hate myself," Foggy says, carding his fingers through his hair, tears of exhaustion hot behind his eyelids.

"Don't say that," Matt says. Foggy can practically hear his frown.

Two girls with identical long blond ponytails sitting in front of them turn around and stare at them. "Shush," they say.

"Shush yourself," Foggy says and then "Oh god, sorry girls," and they nod and turn back, and he lets his head drop back into his arms. The professor definitely noticed. He's glowering at him. He's going to hate him. He's going to fail him. He's going to make sure he'll never get a job. He's going to hunt down his children and children's children and he will be his arch-nemesis who destroys all that is good and curse his family into eternal damnation and –

"Foggy, shhhh," Matt whispers to him and puts his hand on Foggy's knee and it's nice and soothing and he wants, he just wants, he wants to not have to think for a while, that would be so nice, he wants soft arms and a warm smile and a blanket and everything Matt gives him and –

Well he might have drifted off a little after this. A bit. Sleeping in class. The real college experience! He has arrived.

*

Of course he doesn't skip class like a sensible person after that disastrous lecture, even though Matt is trying to make him go to his dorm. And if Matt Murdock is trying to make him play hooky things must be dire. And Matt can't even see him and his terrible exhausted face and the shadows like bruises under his eyes! Just hear his freaked out thoughts apparently. Or something. He hopes to god that Matt is not a mind reader. He might be, who knows.

Well anyway, of course he goes to class, and calls Janice and listens to her cry a bit, and calls his coworker too because she sounded so freaked out, and has to prepare a sandwich for Matt because Matt looks hungry and when has Matt eaten anything the last time anyway, he forgot to keep track, and earlier there was this guy who stared kind of offensively at Matt and Foggy wants to punch everyone who stares at Matt even though Matt wouldn't appreciate it, he wants to –

"Okay, enough," Matt says, after standing quietly in the corner of the kitchen for ten minutes, with his hands folded over his cane. "You've been trying to cut that onion for six minutes now and you're almost falling over and you look like, like a zombie and – "

"How would you even know?" Foggy asks, rubbing his eyes with his onion stained fingers and wow, big mistakes.

"Oh trust me, I know," Matt says darkly.

"Do I sound like a zombie? Or smell like one?" Come to think of it, when was the last time he had taken a shower?

"Yes,” Matt says, frowning more intensely. “Like--" and he holds out his hand in front of him, making a clawing gesture. "Grr. Argh. Brains. Only you're clearly not craving delicious brains but sleep. You're a sleep zombie."

"Am not," Foggy says, voice muffled by the paper towel he grabbed to dab up his onion tears.

"Come on, buddy," Matt says, touching his shoulder. "Let's get you to sleep."

"I'm fine, I need to call mom, I promised I would make a potato salad for this weekend --"

_"Franklin Nelson!"_

Foggy startles and then he can't help it, he laughs. "You're only not full naming me because I never told you my middle name, aren't you?"

"Damn straight," Matt has crossed his arms, oh dear.

"Okay. Okay. I don't think I can do anything against the intended use of full names."

"Good," Matt says, and then he swishes the sad attempt at sandwiches back into the fridge, and steers Foggy back towards their room, right in front of his bed. "Sit." he says. And Foggy sits. Matt issuing commands is kind of new. And kind of hot. Matt sits down next to him, his thigh touching Foggy's.

He shifts for a little while, opening and closing his mouth, and Foggy watches him. Finally Matt takes off his glasses and has this really determined look on his face and says, "What is wrong, Foggy?"

That's actually a really good question.

"Uh, I don't know."

Matt says nothing, just waits patiently. And the thing is, Foggy doesn't know. He's exhausted and his brain is full of people whispering things and noises and well, Matt. So that's what he tells Matt.

"Okay. I get it," Matt says.

And then he slings his arm around Foggy's shoulder and pulls him in, and it's soft and warm and everything Foggy has wanted and they shuffle around a bit until his head rests on Matt's chest, forehead first and he can feel Matt's nose in his hair. This is slightly strange but mostly amazing and Foggy sighs. Matt cups the back of his head with his right hand. "Do you think you could sleep like that?" Matt breathes into his hair. Foggy shakes his head. "Okay."

The world is like – like – this big thing closing in on him and he doesn't know how to escape. He wants to make himself small. He wants to curl up into a ball, held together by Matt's hands, he wants to feel warm and soft and protected by Matt's arms and it's something he's wanted for so long that he doesn't know how he had lived with himself before Matt shaped himself into Foggy's life. And it's like, Foggy belongs here. Curled into Matt. He knows that as surly as he knows that the sun rises in the morning. He might listen to Janice cry and bring her cupcakes and carry Dan's boxes and work early shifts for people having a breakdown, and he likes it, he does, he thinks he _needs_ it, to be needed, but at the end of day he only wants this. For the world to go quiet while Matt holds him together.

After a while of this … whatever it is they're doing (snuggling, okay, just call it snuggling, Foggy's brain supplies) Matt's shifting a little. Letting go of Foggy. Oh no.

"Okay, I want … I want you to take a shower and I'll get us some food, okay?" he pushes Foggy off him gently, holding him at arms length. For the first time ever Foggy wishes he could meet his eyes. Matt puts his hand to Foggy's cheek. "Okay?"

"Okay," Foggy says quietly.

Matt smiles a brilliant smile. "Good boy", he says and Foggy almost dies and goes straight to heaven. Wow.

So he does take a shower, and he combs out the tangles in his hair, and he shaves, and he gets into his oldest softest pajamas with dinosaur prints, and he's sad Matt can't appreciate them because dinosaurs. Yeah.

On his walk back to his room he gets stopped by Inui who wants to tell him about his new girlfriend and her health issues but Matt has like, the ears of a hawk. Or the eyes of a bat? He's not sure anymore what metaphors even are – well Matt's there and he says "Sorry, but we have a study group meeting in five minutes," and then takes Foggy's _hand_ and pulls him back into their room.

"A pajama study group meeting? What are we studying, the history of dinosaurs on fabrics?” Foggy says, grinning.

Matt pushes him down on his bed. "Studying sleep, yes. The fabric of your pillow even."

"And food, I see."

It's healthy food, chicken and broccoli and rice and it does smell pretty nice. He tries to get up but Matt's hand on his shoulder keeps him on the bed. Matt gets him a bowl of food and sits down next to him and when Foggy's trying to grab it he pulls it away.

"Gimme my food, Murdock," Foggy whines.

"No, I'm going to make sure you eat it properly," Matt says and then he spoons some chicken and broccoli on the fork and holds it out into the general direction of Foggy's mouth.

"Uhm," Foggy says.

"Here comes the airplane," Matt says with a smile.

"You're so full of shit, Murdock," Foggy says and dutifully opens his mouth.

Matt does _not_ stab out his eye with the fork like Foggy was half fearing he would but finds his mouth with eerie certainty and how? Matt has got to have bat sonar ears or something, yeah.

But anyway. Foggy doesn't know what this is. He's sitting cross-legged in front of his beautiful roommate, his best friend in the world, and he should feel embarrassed about acting like a child but instead he feels … good. Taken care off.

"Good boy," Matt says when Foggy finishes his food, puts the bowl on the floor and pulls Foggy back into his arms. Foggy's ear rests over Matt's chest and he can hear Matt's heartbeat. It's so good. It's soothing. It's all he ever wanted. The echos of the day ebb and flow around him -- chattering people and onions -- and Matt's hands are carding through his hair, scratching at his scalp a little, running softly over the shell of his ear.

"'M sorry," Foggy mumbles, just because he feels like he should.

"Shhh, no," Matt says, rocking him a little. "I'm going to take care of you, okay?" There's a tentativeness in his voice and Foggy's heart feels like it could burst.

"Okay," he says.

"Thank you." Ha, as if he's doing Matt a favor. Matt's fingers tangle in his hair, and then he feels lips on his forehead, over his temple, soft slightly wet little kisses that warm him, sink into his skin, anchoring him to another person, to Matt. I like this so much, he wants to say. I like you. He does. He really really does.

"Go to sleep, Foggy," Matt whispers to him, and so he does, because Matt tells him to, and he should, and he needs to, and he wants to give Matt whatever he can. Everything he can.

*

He wakes up ten and a half hours later to soft morning sunlight flooding his room. Matt's wrenched himself next to Foggy on his bed, ear-bud from his laptop sitting next to him in his ear while brushing through Foggy's hair with his fingers.

Foggy feels held, safe, protected. Renewed. Like a butterfly crawling out of a cocoon.

He feels home.

*

_And the only way to last_  
_And the only way to live it_  
_Is to hold on when you get love,_  
_And let go when you give it._


End file.
